Last Fuck for the Cameras

Listen, I’m no porn star but I did have my fifteen seconds of fame when I did a solo photo shoot and video stint just last year for hotoldermale. I was surprised at the number of guys who hit me up on the hook-up sites or my blogs to let me know they had checked me out and thanked me for their boner. So it was with curious personal interest that I read a story in one of the gay newspapers down here in Lauderdale that focused on the unrelated string of recent suicides by some of the humpiest men in gay porn. Without knowing their respective lives and tribulations, there’s no way to tell if any of their ultimate acts of desperation shared commonalities. But it’s not hard to imagine how a guy who is worshipped from afar by the unseen masses in the privacy of their bedrooms simply and solely for what God gave him can become deluded by all that adoration.

As porn icon and entrepreneur Michael Lucas explained in the article: “Sex work is a very hard job … There’ s nothing glamorous about it. As with many physical jobs, it wears on you. Also porn performers travel constantly. It’s hard for them to build a solid, stable support network of friends and people to go to when things feel wrong.”

At least actors act, some long after their pretty boy looks have faded. And male models don’t have to “perform.” But being a male porn star is all about the three H’s which are as elemental as they are fleeting:

Looking HOTwhich means hours in the gym, sometimes shooting up with steroids which could fuck with your body and your brain, and watching your diet like a hawk. You’re supposed to be perfect, remember?

Being HORNY even when your libido is in the cellar and your fellow “actors” aren’t exactly your type; and most importantly,

Keeping it HARD for hours and hours of tedious shooting which is where the Viagra and shots in the dick come in handy.

Now if the guy is level headed, is anchored in the real world, and has a modicum of intelligence, he’ll realize his adoring fans are as fickled as the next brand new nine inch cock and, if he hasn’t already, will plan for a career and life after porn. Sometimes the money he’s made in front the cameras (which for most guys isn’t a lot in this age of free amateur porn on sites like xtube) or contacts he’s forged may help him transition to that next chapter. Often they won’t.

Sadly I suspect, as with many direction-less gay men without much discipline or ambition who kiss their mirrors every morning and are content to work at low end jobs as long there’s enough to buy those White Party tix, the constant ego massages they receive become their drug. And when their “fifteen minutes of fame” – be it as a porn icon or a hot head turner – are over, they have nothing else in their lives of any real meaning.

For the lucky few, finding a sugar daddy is the temporary panacea, but for others it’s escapism in the form of drugs, alcohol, and sex.